Swipe-away rate
Percent of viewers who swipe past a Short or TikTok in the first few seconds.
Swipe-away rate is the inverse of hook rate, specifically on swipeable feeds: TikTok For You Page, Shorts feed, Instagram Reels. It measures how aggressively viewers reject your video in the opening beat.
Below 30 percent swipe-away is a strong opener. Above 50 percent is a structural problem with the hook, not a tweak.
TikTok exposes this directly. Shorts requires inferring it from retention at 1 to 3 seconds.
Why it matters
Swipe-away rate is the gating function for everything downstream on swipeable feeds. A video that loses 60 percent in the first 2 seconds will never reach a meaningful audience, regardless of how good the back half is.
How to improve it
- 01First frame matters more than first sentence. The thumbnail of a Short is the first frame.
- 02Audio hooks (a strong sound or beat) reduce swipe-away independent of visual hook.
- 03Avoid intros, logos, or 'hey guys' openers. Both cost 10 to 20 points of swipe-away.
See your own swipe-away rate in seconds.
Paste any YouTube, Shorts or TikTok link and our analyzer will surface the metric, the curve, and the move that lifts it next.